CategoryExoplanets

In the course of our research for clients, we come across emerging technologies, new materials, new chemistries, growing markets, changing regulatory landscapes, innovative business models, and much more. Every other Friday, we pick five articles, videos, or podcasts that we found interesting and send them your way.

Using a modeling method called ReaxFF, researchers are testing a new class of glass-forming material: zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, or ZIF. Their goal is to combine the transparency of silicate glass with the non-brittle quality of metallic glass. ZIF glasses have the potential to be more transparent and bendable than traditional glass, making them a better choice for a variety of applications. [EUREKA ALERT]

Developed circa 3,200 B.C., Mesopotamian cuneiform is the oldest known writing system in the world. But it does not stand alone. Research shows that writing was invented independently in a least three other civilizations over time. This articles gives a quick history of how those scripts were developed and how they form the basis for every other writing system that followed. [DISCOVER]

Where do brilliant decisions come from? Business schools teach entrepreneurs and aspiring executives to be successful—training them to make brilliant decisions and hire people who do the same. But while graduates may leave with improved strategic skills, researchers have only recently begun collecting the empirical evidence to explain how lessons learned in the business-school classroom produce effective decision-making in the field. [CHICAGO BOOTH REVIEW]

MIT researchers have developed a Bluetooth-controlled, 3D-printed capsule which, once ingested, can communicate core body temperature to your doctor and release drugs in response to symptoms that it detects. While not available yet for use in humans, researchers plan to expand the delivery system’s capabilities by adding sensors able to detect other vital signs, such as heart/breathing rate. [DIGITAL TRENDS]

ASTRONOMY | EXOPLANETS

Evaporating Planets, Disintegrating Rings [LINKS IN TEXT BELOW]

Planet GJ 3407b, a Neptune sized exoplanet, is disappearing at a rapid pace. Its upper atmosphere is being blown off by wind and stellar radiation, and it has lost about 35 percent of its mass since its birth 2 million years ago. Astronomers believe that it and other gas giants orbiting close to their stars “simply can’t take the heat . . .” [MOTHERBOARD]

New NASA research confirms that Saturn is losing its iconic rings at the maximum rate estimated from Voyager 1 & 2 observations made decades ago. The rings are being pulled into Saturn by gravity, falling into the planet as a dusty rain of ice particles. The new data indicates the rings are less than 100 million years old and have less than 100 million years left to live; given what a blink-of-the-eye 200 million years is to the solar system, we’re lucky we got to see them at all. [SCIENCE DAILY]